Anyway, I found it especially interesting how a "city" comes into being. This reading made me think of the expression, If you don't like the way it's done, you're welcome to do it yourself. Every day, I know that we all take turns complaining about something, no matter how petty, and talk about how we wish it was different or how we would do something differently. Maybe it's the way a class is graded or how someone conducted an interview. But sometimes it's even larger like how a country is ruled or how a powerful person decides to make a grand decision like go to war or create a new law. Often times, it's so easy for us to disagree or say what we would do instead because we don't actually have that real power to make a change or it's easy to say something when only so few are listening and the situation is purely hypothetical.
So when it comes to the case of creating a utopia, or even just a successful city, it's interesting to see how that plan comes into play. A person might say that we should not have laws because they feel that laws create a lot of pressure for society and restrict peoples' freedom. This all seems well and good until a store gets robbed or a person is murdered and there are no rules against it and no repercussions for doing these things. So then we go back and say, well, maybe laws aren't so bad after all because they protect us. The same trial and error could follow with government, education, guidelines, etc. Plato's writing goes along with this concept as it starts with a single person and the realization that one person cannot do it all, so obviously why not have more than one citizen in this city? So Socrates decides to have a handful of people who each provide different abilities and trades and in turn will use their skills to provide for the other city members. The list of people grows and grows as Socrates and the others realize that so many people are needed to make, share, export and exchange different things. If a person is amazing at a trade, it is better to let them spend all their time practicing and perfecting their trade than to make them juggle several different tricks and trades at a lower quality.
I also was intrigued by the discussion of heroes and leaders that make up a society. There were so many rules and quirks that were necessary to creating the ideal people for general city members to look up to. Heroes had to be tough and unafraid of death and had to be earnest and true. Heroes are designed to show what true justice is and to show humankind that you must be just in order to succeed in both life and the after life. Acting unjust can make you successful in the short-term, but it will catch up with you in the end. Characters in stories also had to act a certain way because young city members may not know how to separate fact and fiction and should only be shown the proper ways to act and values to have in a good society. All of these people, whether real people of the city or people just being talked about or passed around as stories need to be poised both in action and mind and cannot be vicious or graceless because that might give people the wrong idea. I agree with the theory behind this as I do think people are poorly influenced by celebrities who have gone off the rail or criminals who are sensationalized on the news, but I also disagree because I think there is something to be said for learning from mistakes or by learning stories that teach morals and lessons from failures and trials.
Finally, I find the brief discussion of medical necessity interesting. Socrates and the others agree that there is a need for doctors. They also agree that the doctors must be experienced and wise beyond their years, having seen a variety of illnesses and ailments so that nothing comes to them as a surprise. However, they say that these doctors must also have been diseased or injured themselves, because why else would they spend their life caring for the ill if they were not ill themselves? It sounds crazy to us, but if we think about it, a hospital is one of the easiest places to get sick in. We say to avoid them if possible because disease travels and is everywhere and we don't want to make ourselves unnecessarily sick if we don't have to. Maybe doctors should be the same way. You can only treat someone for something you have already been exposed to or had experience with. We also see the ever-popular Utopia-style view on life. Do we treat those with chronic, incurable disease or do we leave them to their fate? In books like The Giver, we learn about "the release" where older people are killed once they reach a certain age or in Utopia where we offer those who can no longer contribute to society an easy way out. Are we being kind by helping people prolong their lives if they are terminal or are we fighting nature? Would these people be more comfortable letting go and accepting their fate? Are we actually being too cruel by letting those live who are mentally ill and have no chance at a normal life?
We all have our own opinions, questions, faiths and morals that we would shape into a city or our own or even a world, but how much of what we want would actually work? Would we eventually run through trial and error and realize that the world we have now is how it should be or is there really a better way?
